Painted Floors: Inspiration Gallery

Last week Annie posted about rugs painted on floors. People have been painting patterns on floors for centuries, yielding a host of different decorative effects, from medallions to stripes to checkerboards to the totally unexpected. Here is an inspiration gallery of painted floors. Keep in mind: a lot of these can be DIY projects, with a little bit of planning and painters' tape.

Top Row: Patterns and Stripes1 A classic geometric pattern from November's Elle Decor, via A Perfect Gray2 Green and white stripes in Jason Oliver Nixon and John Loecke's home, from Domino via Bride's3 Blue and white zigzags, from Domino via Bride's4 David Kaihoi interior, photographed by Ngoc Minh Ngo for House Beautiful5 Ashley Whittaker-designed foyer, with floor painted to look like marquetry, photographed by Eric Piasecki for House BeautifulSecond Row: Checkerboards6 White checkerboard on wood looks almost rustic here, via Manolo Home (includes how-to links)7 Light wood/dark wood checkerboard, from Cottage Living via myhomeideas.com8 Jason and John's green checkerboard via Apartment Therapy9 Blue and caramel checkerboard by Frederick and Frederick Architects, via houzz10 William Sawaya interior with white paint highlighting the parquet pattern, photographed by Armando Bertacchi for Elle Decor's November 2008 issueBottom Row: Geometrics and Medallions11 Nick Olsen DIY'd this awesome deco/mod pattern, via New York Social Diary12 A Stockholm apartment with painted parquet, designed by Tham & Videgård Hansson Arkitekter via dezeen13Sara Story painted both floor and ceiling in this Gramercy Park dining room14Eric Cohler gave this room a sense of history, not to mention a sense of direction, with this painted medallion of an old-fashioned compass15 Jeffrey Bilhuber painted these floors white and then scattered them with folk art-inspired medallions, photographed by Julian Wass for House Beautiful

Which of these is your favorite painted floor? Are you inspired to take on a floor-painting project?